This post was written by marc on August 8, 2004
Posted Under: Politics

You might have seen this story in the news lately about the San Francisco man who put up a fake video of a beheading (of himself being beheaded) and the Associated Press took it as real. Since then the respectable press has been trying to cover their asses and distort the truth to make it look like this guy is to blame for the deception rather than their own stupidity.

To that end the newsmedia who has called Ben Vanderford and interviewed him have been changing his story to suit their spin on the issue. But unlike them – I am a real journalist and I have provided them web space to tell their side of the story unedited. That way the real story can come out.

As of this moment the FBI is trying hard to find something they can charge these kids with to save the press the embarrasment of having fucked up the original story. You see – if they can persecute them – then that take attention off their own coverups, their stupidity, and that the media is just a puppet of the Bush administration. At least – this is my spin about what is going on with this story.

As of right now – this is the only link on the internet to their side of the story and as an advocate of free speech I have decided to give them a voice. I got a call early this morning after they got booted off of their previous host and I decided to give them a voice. They have given me the go ahead so it is now up there. And it will remain the official unedited voice of what it is they have to say.

One of the reasons I am doing this is because I have myself been a critic of the original Nick Berg Video which was heavilly edited and raised more questions than it resolved. In the Nick Berg video the man who is killing berg – al-Zarqawi – has two legs where the real al-Zarqawi only has one. The video appears to have been filmed at Abu Ghraib Prison and Berg – who was in American custody is still wearing an American orange uniform. Aparently others had suspected fakery and were curious enough to experiment on how to fake a beheading. These kids produced a video – obviously not intended to actually decieve anyone – because it was the beheading of the producer of the film who was never a captive – and who’s name and address appear in the film.

Had Associated Press done ANY research at all they would have know it was fake. Here’s a link to the Original video. Can you believe they fell for this?

Reader Comments

Regarding the Nick Berg execution, it’s pretty clear he was dead before the time of beheading, but if you want to be able to claim to be a real journalist, you might want to do a bit of fact checking:

al-Zarqawi “reportedly” had one leg. Because it was assumed that he only had one leg, it was also assumed that he died in a bombing run (since he wouldn’t have been fast enough to escape). If he has, in fact, two legs, he could have escaped the bombing run. Since he’s still around causing trouble, it’s been since determined that the intel we had on him having one leg was wrong. Bad intel causing people to draw the wrong conclusions. Imagine that.

On the other hand, he might very well be dead but his organization sure wants us to believe he’s alive, as they themselves are claiming that al-Zarqawi is behind the executions and bombings. That’s why we suspect he’s still alive.

There have been two execution videos taken that have an “Abu Ghraib” type wall in the background, which suggests that that wall color may be common in Iraq – as the chair has been shown to be. The executions haven’t been taking place at Abu Ghraib.

Nick Berg wasn’t wearing an American prison jumpsuit. None of the people who were beheaded were. Other than being orange, none of them were even similar to one another. They were put into orange jumpsuits by their captors to symbolize the abuses committed in Abu Ghraib.

Before any other prisoners were executed, the Nick Berg execution looked pretty suspicious. There are still questionable elements, but the points you’re bringing up aren’t among them. And, unlike the Vanderford video, there’s no doubt that Berg was, in fact, beheaded. They showed his head on the video, and Berg’s body was found.

BTW, nowhere does the linked article (and article linked to that) suggest that Vanderford, et. al. were suspicious about the Berg execution video.

I wonder if the people at AP and Reuters even watched it. They probably just heard it was posted on an Arabic web site and aired on two Arabic TV stations and reported that it was true. Of course, that begs the question of why the Arabic web site it was hosted on (one that hosts a number of execution videos) and Arabic stations that aired it, didn’t immediately identify it as a hoax.

Line, hook and sinker. I want to hear someone defend the so-called “liberal” media. Go ahead, do it. If we ca’t expect the government or the media to do their jobs, then WTF are heading towards? There is no accountability right now in the white and in the DAMN media! Can’t trust neither. Man, I need a drink…

Cudos for letting them speak out. I’m not sure where I stand on this, although, it has a way of desensatizing our society beyond that which they already are.

In general I feel Americans are “reality challenged” and to see yet another act of savage brutality, albeit phoney, only serves to keep them in their recliners with remotes in hand.

Their (the producer and co.) methods, perhaps, could have been better thought out, but I do agree with their attack on the sensationalism with which the mainstream news tends to sell itself. Violence and blood sell and AP will drink it up. So too, it seems, will the sheep, hence Ap’s little ‘oops’.

Here’s a misconception I hear constantly: the folks in NW Florida were discouraged from voting because the “liberal” media neglected to take into account the area’s earlier time zone and prematurely reported Gore had won the state.

I have some problems with this theory.

First of all, I guarantee every single conservative from Appalachicola to West Pensacola cast his or her vote as early as possible. Bush lovers aren’t exactly the kind of people who go tramping the streets after 6 p.m. (unless they’re active duty military, in which case they’d either already cast an absentee ballot for their home state, or were working until midnight and had already voted on their way to work that afternoon).

Second of all, in NW Florida conservatives had (still have) a stranglehold on the news “media” — no less than six billion a.m. “EIB”-type radio stations, a couple hundred million religious radio stations, a handful of mediocre, apolitical f.m. radio stations, and an already EXTREMELY popular FOX News Channel on every available cable network.

(Okay, so I exaggerated the numbers…)

Finally, I’d not heard any projections on my way home from Hurlburt Field that afternoon, but if I had I’d still have cast my vote. To do otherwise would have been irresponsible.

“Incredible they would think it was real. Neocon=dumbass.” (from Phil’s cross-posted comment re the beheading on the “Bush Did Not Win Florida” thread).

Phil, It’s not like Fox News was the first news agency to report the “beheading”. The video was hosted on an Arabic website as authentic, and reported by two Arabic TV news channels – including Al-Jazeera – again, as authentic, before AP and Reuters (in Egypt) picked it up and reported it to the West.

Arab=dumbass

Not really, of course, just making a point about generalizations – especially when they’re misdirected.